


what a weight to live under

by callingthequits



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: (even though its set in a reading the books fic), (mostly for fanservice reasons oops), Gen, Merman Percy, Not A Reading The Books Fic, Set after HoO, This was supposed to be crack but it kinda ended up serious, overprotective Poseidon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:22:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24216604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callingthequits/pseuds/callingthequits
Summary: Athena's girl cleared her throat loudly. "I think we're all forgetting the main reason why the Fates gathered all of us here today, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't so I could bear witness to the Olympians blatantly ogling my merman boyfriend."You've seen it before: the demigods and the gods are summoned to Olympus to read the books. For some reason, Percy is a merman. And somehow, this becomes a source of infighting, drama, and the realization that maybe the gods don't appreciate the demigods as much as they should. Not actually a Reading The Books fic.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 169





	what a weight to live under

"Look, it's not that weird, okay? You can all stop staring now," said Percy.

Of course, it wasn't all that weird for him or for Poseidon, but everybody else in the room never had the chance to see a merman in person before then.

Personally, the sea god preferred to see his son like this. His tail was a vibrant shade of cerulean, and the ceremonial jewelry of the royal family had flattered his skin tone quite nicely. Sure, his teeth were sharper than usual and the markings on his torso looked a little alien, but this wasn't the most unusual or monstrous combination of merpeople traits. Truthfully, Percy was blessed in that regard, and Poseidon made a point of informing them as much.

Athena facepalmed. "Can't you just change him back to a human for now?"

"It's far too much work," he replied, a little too cheerfully. "I had to consult the ancient scriptures for this, you know. Besides, it's clearly not harming anybody here, is it? I propose he just stay as is."

Of course, he could hardly announce that he was just happy because it meant that, even if only temporarily, Percy was still willing to connect himself to the sea, to Atlantis, to Poseidon. Despite everything, his son could still look at him with love, and that thought gave him a quiet sort of joy that he wasn't willing to let go.

Poseidon looked around the room to find that all of them had their eyes on his son, who was currently languidly resting on top of a huge rock in the middle of the little ocean he had fashioned for his comfort. While some of them did so with innocent curiosity and surprise, like Hephaestus and most of the goddesses, many others, like the demigods, were quite flushed. Irritably, he noted that the rest of them looked at his youngest son with a newfound, highly inappropriate interest that immediately made his mood turn sour.

Zeus very pointedly refused to look him in the eye as he groused out, "It's...distracting."

Apollo hedged, "But, uh, we don't have to force Uncle P to do anything."

"Oh yes, yes," agreed Hermes. "No need for such drastic measures."

Ares, uncharacteristically, kept his mouth shut, which said much more about his thoughts on the matter than any words would have.

Clearly, his decision to turn his favorite son into a merman and spend a summer at Atlantis could not have come at a worse time.

Poseidon gripped his trident tightly, smiling. "You lay any of your dirty fingers on him and I will have you all castrated with electric eels and have your pathetic, little balls fed to sharks."

The demigods present, especially the Roman ones, looked appropriately disturbed by this exchange. "Holy gay pedo incest Batman," muttered the son of Hephaestus, "I can't believe I got resurrected for this."

Athena's girl cleared her throat loudly. "I think we're all forgetting the main reason why the Fates gathered all of us here today, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't so I could bear witness to the Olympians blatantly ogling my merman boyfriend."

"I certainly wouldn't mind if it was," purred Aphrodite, and her daughter choked.

Artemis glared at the love goddess. "Only because you're a low-life degenerate, much like the rest of my brothers. At least have the decency to make your advances in private."

Percy raised his hand, looking quite irritated. "Actually, I would prefer if no advances be made towards me, public or private. I have a girlfriend who I love very much, and personally, you're all a big pain in the ass and I hate several of you."

The throne room erupted in a furious uproar, but any smiting that might have occurred was interrupted by Ares letting out a big, hearty guffaw. "Haven't you ever heard of hate sex, kid? Now that's the stuff right there. I'd love to see your tight little body get wrecked by it."

Before anybody else could argue with some inane suggestion for how they'd rather defile his sweet, innocent son, Poseidon slammed his trident on the floor so hard that the entirety of Olympus began to shake with his anger. "Perhaps my previous punishment was too light," he said darkly. "If any of you so much as even steal another glance at him, I will make Tartarus himself think he's too lenient with his horrors."

He vaguely registered Hera rolling her eyes. "Great, yet another fight. And this time it's for the hand of a _demigod_ ," she spat. "I hope all of you know that Perseus has long since forsaken his chastity, so all your petty bickering still comes up to nothing."

Poseidon was just about to let up all his righteous fury on his darling sister when everybody in the throne room was suddenly doused in seawater. With everyone sputtering out in surprise and indignation, a sharp whistle caught all their attention. They all turned their heads toward the noise, only to find it had come from nobody else but Percy himself.

"Can I just say that I'm _really_ glad I turned down immortality all those months ago," he drawled. "I'm not all that glad to relive all my demigod traumas and experiences, but that humiliation and mental scarring would be a lot better than whatever's happening right now.

"Look, I get that you're all horny or whatever, but can you guys just _chill_? I'd say I'm flattered, but I'm really not, and this would all boil over a lot faster if you gods just decided to focus on something that wasn't blowing each other up for once."

Zeus opened his mouth, probably to demand respect, but Percy just leveled him with a nasty glare and snapped, "No! All of you have been screwing up my life for the past five years, and I'd be glad to still retain a single shred of my dignity once we're done with this. I don't like all of you looking at me like a piece of meat, and I've fought too hard for too long just for all of you to finally stop bothering me."

His son was heaving deep breaths, obviously distressed, and it was making the water in his little pool rise up around him like the beginnings of a hurricane. The demigods exchanged quick, worried glances. "Don't I finally deserve some peace in my life?" he muttered, and the amount of pain in that single sentence made Poseidon's heart ache.

His boy never really caught a break, did he? He knew that, of course he knew that, it's the whole reason why he invited Percy to Atlantis in the first place. Oh, but it wasn't just that – he also wanted to show off his palace, his kingdom, to his only demigod son. He wanted to give Percy a chance to properly meet Triton and Amphitrite, knowing that he'd definitely worm his way into their hearts. He wanted the delusion that he could give Percy another life, a happier life, one where he was safe and sound with Poseidon. He'd crafted this excuse that his people weren't comfortable with a land-dweller among them, but the truth was that, when Percy had a tail like everybody else did, it was all the more easier for Poseidon to sink into the delusion that he could protect him.

When they both received a summons to Olympus, they hardly expected that it would be at the behest of the Fates. The whole Olympian Council had been waiting for them, even Hades. Seated at the foot of their respective parents' thrones was every demigod that had been influential in the Giant War – the Seven, the Roman Praetor, and Nico di Angelo. And right at the center, right where Hestia tended the hearth and protected Hope, were ten books that promised to cover the entire story of the last two Great Prophecies.

Percy could hardly look at them when they arrived, and that told the sea god all he needed to know.

Of course, his dimwitted family had completely ignored everything they were supposed to focus on and instead let themselves be distracted with the sight of a young, shirtless boy adorned with ancient Grecian jewelry and a vibrant fish tail, the likes of which they haven't seen since the old days. If Percy had appeared as he usually did, Poseidon knew, they wouldn't have been so taken with him.

Well, if he could make one of his son's worries go away...

"It's not _too_ much trouble to change you back, you know," Poseidon offered. "Might take a few days, but it's not impossible."

Percy frowned. "What? No, I like this."

Poseidon blinked. "What?"

He ignored the sigh of relief that came from the Council. He'd have words with them later, but right now the god was focused on his son.

Percy shifted uneasily, a bit embarrassed. "I don't like the attention, that's for sure. And I'm not saying I want this form permanently. But it's comforting, kinda? It makes me feel at home."

"Oh," said Poseidon, faintly. He hardly knew how to react to actually getting what he wanted. "That's, ah, that's nice to hear."

"Yeah."

"Good."

"Great."

There was a brief silence, in which both father and son didn't exactly know how to handle casual words of affection. Nobody else in the Throne Room really know how to handle it either, but Poseidon caught Hestia smiling approvingly at him, so he supposed things were fine.

"Alright, enough with this sentimentality," Zeus grumbled. "The Fates did bring us all here for an actual reason, and it certainly wasn't for any family bonding. While we've yet to divine their actual purpose in bringing us these books, we can assume that it's to prevent any other wars, disasters, tragedies, blah, blah, etcetera. I have to admit, I'd rather not go through something similar to the past few decades again. Do we concur?"

"Hear, hear," the Council chanted. Poseidon stayed silent, raising his eyebrows at his brother expectantly, who rolled his eyes dramatically but otherwise understood what he was trying to say.

"Of course, it seems that we have to apologize for our recent...behavior, regarding Percy Jackson," the sky god said, begrudgingly. "It was inappropriate of us. We, er, apologize. It won't happen again."

Percy looked surprised, but some of Triton's royal speak and politicking must have rubbed off on him, because he was incredibly composed when he replied, "That's quite gracious of you, Lord."

A loud snort from Hephaestus' feet broke the formality. Leo Valdez rolled his eyes, saying, "Gracious is the least you guys can be, right? I mean, dude literally saved your butts twice. Gotta treat the guy with respect."

"Yeah, just because his appearance changed doesn't mean he's not the same guy," Frank Zhang's lips twitched. "I would know."

"Besides, even if he didn't do all that, he's still one of the few demigods out there who still knows you guys exist and give you power. Shouldn't that count for something?" Hazel Levesque frowned.

"More than that, he's part of your family," Piper McLean argued. "A screwed-up, partially immortal, crazy family, sure, but family nonetheless. It'd be nice if we could respect each other."

"It'd be nice if we could all listen to each other," Jason Grace gave a weak smile. "After all, everyone's got problems. And demigod problems, whether they're Greek or Roman, are universal in that they all suck."

"And it's hard when you feel like you're going through all that alone," said Nico di Angelo, with a careless shrug that looked anything but. "Because if you don't belong among the mortals and you don't belong among the demigods, then you've got nowhere else to go."

"We try to make sure everyone feels important, that they have purpose," Reyna Ramirez-Arellano stated, only the barest tremble of her hands to show her frustration. "But we can only do so much to fix a system that's broken from its conception. When you feel unloved, there's no cure for that."

Annabeth Chase looked every god in the eye, especially Hermes, making sure they all made contact with her unflinching gaze. "It's why so many of us fall prey to Kronos, or to Gaea. Because you abandon us and ignore us until you need something from us, and then we'll be lucky to get the scraps of your attention afterward."

Percy was beaming in pride at all of his friends, but the gods were more divided. Some were offended, some were pensive, and some of them just looked amused; Poseidon, personally, felt like the demigods' arguments had skimmed the surface of what was to be an interesting discussion - but one that the gods weren't yet ready for.

Zeus was scowling fiercely. "Nicely coordinated, but your point is?"

"Peace, father," Athena said. "I believe that their point will be made clear as we go along with the books. Is that right, Annabeth?"

The girl in question looked a bit miffed at not being able to further their argument, but she nodded.

"I suppose we can finally get started then," Hades drawled. "I do hope we'll be quick about it, or else the backlog in the Underworld will get several centuries worse."

Hermes stretched as much as he could in his throne. "Oh, I guess we'd better settle in then. Those books look so long to read, can't we have the CliffsNotes version?"

"Speak for yourself, I want every nasty little detail of how many times this brat gets pulverized," Ares' eyes flared.

"And all his love problems! Ooh, this will be so exciting!" Aphrodite squealed.

Apollo brightened. "Maybe I can summarize it all in a series of haikus! I know just where to start, _Death and blood and the glory of me–_ "

"Not even five syllables," grumbled Artemis. "It's not even supposed to be about you, Apollo! Ugh, men and their pigheadedness."

Meanwhile, Dionysus was lazily twirling a glass of strawberry juice in his hand, not even paying attention. Hephaestus was back to his machinery, Demeter was busy admiring her favorite grain, and Hera looked as if she was nursing a headache. The demigods looked displeased, but stayed silent: it seemed like they understood that it would take a while before the gods took their concerns seriously.

All in all, it looked like the Council was in order.

Poseidon, eyes twinkling, had summoned the first book and handed it to Zeus. "Let's lead by example, shall we, my king?"

Zeus glared at him, but took the book anyway.

The sky god cleared his throat, and the Throne Room began quieting down. He flipped to the first page, and in his loud, booming voice, he read out: " _Look, I didn't want to be a demigod._ "

The gods froze, and the demigods shared a grim smile.

Poseidon simply leaned back in his throne. Well, this looked like it was going to be interesting.

**Author's Note:**

> You know, this actually wasn't supposed to be serious? The working title for this fic was _i had a polympians parody fic and a merman percy fic so i decided to combine the two in a perfect marriage_ , but then it didn't turn out nearly as cracky as that, so.
> 
> I've had this on-and-off fantasy for years, of writing a PJO Reading the Books fanfic, but then I never did. I don't think I ever will, but if I ever do, I'm pretty sure I'd write something like this for a first chapter. It'd be that kind of RtB with rich character interaction and detailed descriptions of what everybody is doing at any given time, and I just don't have the patience to write all that, dude. 
> 
> Title comes from _Goodmorning_ by Bleachers.


End file.
